Cops’ strength? Shhh, it’s top secret

A DAP MP is perplexed why the Speaker rejected his question on the strength of the police force on the grounds of secrecy.

KUALA LUMPUR: Much to the chagrin of a DAP MP, the Dewan Rakyat Speaker rejected a written question on the strength of the police force on the grounds of secrecy.

Bukit Bendera MP Liew Chin Tong had asked the Home Ministry to provide a breakdown of the police’s strength from 2001 to 2010.

The speaker’s decision, made known in a letter dated June 10, was signed by the Secretray of the Dewan Rakyat.

The letter stated that a question cannot enquire on matters which were deemed secret.

Liew, who was dumbfounded by the response, said the statistics for 2005 was made available in the report by the Royal Commission on the Police Force.

“I don’t understand why they can’t reveal the figures now. I am stunned that they are not giving us the numbers,” he told reporters.

In the 2005 statistics that Liew handed to reporters today, there was a graph titled “uniformed police personnel in core policing and non-core policing functions on 16 February 2005″, listing the seven police departments and their respective breakdowns.

The list revealed that the total number of personnel were 92,927. The highest number were from the Internal Security/Public Order Department with 33,214. Commercial Crime/Investigation Department had the lowest number of personnel with 690. The Special Branch had 6,026 personnel.

Contacted later, Liew said that he wanted to know if the police was used to protect the interest of Barisan National or the country.

“We are paying for the police force. The budget allotted for the police is more than RM5 billion in 2011. I just want to know how this money is being spent – is it to protect BN or the country’s interest?” he asked.

Liew also told FMT that he would keep pursuing the matter as the government should allow open debates on these matters.

“I know the numbers (of police personnel) have changed,” he said, adding that the government should make the new numbers known.

RM63.9 mil for GTP, ETP

In another development, the government revealed that it spent a whopping RM63.9 million to organise open days and hire consultants to implement the Government Transformation Plan (GTP) and Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) initiatives.

Liew had asked the government to state the cost of publicity including the launch, road shows and advertisements for both the GTP and ETP.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Koh Tsu Koon in his written answer zoomed in on two open day events that lasted for three days respectively.

He said that RM15.1 million was spent on the open day for the GTP which went on for three days in Kuala Lumpur, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu. This included the launch and exhibition as well as the subsidy rationalisation exhibition, which came up to RM5.4 million. For communications and publicity, RM9.7million was spent.

Koh also said that the government had allocated RM5.44 billion for GTP efforts last year and the above mentioned expenditure was less than 0.28% of its allocations.

The government had spent RM12.5 million for its ETP initiative – RM5.7million for the launch and open day that went on for three days, as well as RM6.8 miilion for communications.

Koh justified the cost saying the price paid for the 60 projects under the 46 entry point projects (EPP) launched during the open day had the potential to “generate investments of RM94.4 billion and a gross national income of RM137.2 billion as well as 224,358 job opportunities.”

The cost of publicity and communications was less than 0.013% compared to the total investment, he said.

In a response to Liew’s other question on the number of contractual staff under the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) as well as the payment to consultants engaged, Koh said that the government had paid RM36.3 million to consultants for conducting various laboratories.